


Childish Things

by ronia



Category: The Americans (TV 2013)
Genre: Biblical References, Character Study, Christmas, Gen, Historical References, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17020956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronia/pseuds/ronia
Summary: Paige felt like she needed a manual.Etiquette for dinner guests whose parents are Russian spies.Or maybe justHow to act like an adult.





	Childish Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomizer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomizer/gifts).



Paige stood from the table, all at once, and staggered through the bare rooms, grabbing at the walls, the corners, the door knob that turned under her hard grip. She barely made it to the dark bathroom in time before she threw up. Maybe her body was finally catching up with her, to where she was right now. Or maybe, she thought, that's just what happened when all you eat in twenty-four hours is a McDonald's cheeseburger and ice-cold vodka. 

It was a while before she pulled herself back up. She washed her face. Spat in the sink. Looked in the smudged mirror – she'd pulled the wig and glasses off, now it was just her own straight hair falling down to her shoulders. Something about that – the way her hair fell over shoulder. How her shoulder was hunched, slightly, her weight held against her right arm, her hands clenching the sink, fingers down and palms up, made her think so much of her mom that she stumbled back from the mirror.

There was the glass, and her mom was watching her from the other side. But no, she wasn't. Her mom was gone, they were both gone. She hadn't let herself think about them, where they might be right now. Had they made it back to Russia yet. Paige's mind flashed through the trip, when her mom had taken her. Cyrillic, familiar-but-unreadable signs, soldiers with red pins at the borders, her fake passport. She'd had more fake passports than – they must've kept one, buried there, changing it every few years, since she was born.

Paige found a glass in the kitchen and spat out again. She hadn't thought about them because she'd only thought about herself. What she would do. Coming here had been the first step. Her key still worked. The fridge was still cold. Paige knew she couldn't stay very long, someone would come here. Maybe Claudia. Maybe who they'd worked for – they'd try to take her too. Try to make her go. There were so many of them, and they were everywhere. That was what she'd learned. Everywhere, just normal-looking people, like her parents.

They could be looking for her, and they were better than her. Paige knew that, too. If she tried to hide, when she had no money, no place to go, only a wig and glasses and that fake passport, there would be nothing to stop them. They probably knew that name, too, could look for it. Paige glanced around the room, her eyes drawn to a phone on the wall. Did it work? Was there some direct line to the KGB? _Moscow, tell them I don't want to come_. She said it in her head the way she'd heard them say it in the movies. _Moskva_.

No, she knew what she had to do. She had to find a way they couldn't take her. Go to a place where they wouldn't touch her. She filled the glass from the kitchen again, and this time drank down the water. She didn't want to smell sick. Maybe it would be okay to look a little sick. She pressed her palms hard against her eyes, tried to push some of her hair out of her face, but then left it, disheveled and frayed along her shoulders. She turned out the lights. It was night now, but she didn't care. Nothing felt real about stepping outside, the dark street, the bus stop. The last stop. Nothing felt real until she saw the light, above the red door.

She walked to it, didn't once turn back, not one look across the street. Like Lot, she remembered, what it would turn into if she turned around. Her fear pressed so close in the darkness behind her that she felt her knees shake. But the light was on – the light above Mr. Beeman's front door. Almost like they were expecting her.

It was Mr. Beeman who opened the door, and he definitely wasn't expecting her. His mouth opened, but he didn't speak. She wanted to look away, look ashamed. It rushed back to her, all the adrenaline and fear when she'd seen him in that parking garage, when he was holding a gun on her. Would he have that gun now? Would he shoot her? Paige knew he wouldn't. She couldn't say why or how she knew, but she knew he wouldn't aim a gun at her again. She knew he wouldn't hurt her, just like, somehow, her parents had known he wouldn't hurt them. But she had to keep her eyes on his. She could hear their voices say it, explain it. _The only way you'll survive this is if he knows you won't back down_.

And she waited, in the doorway, meeting his eyes and saying nothing. She waited until –

"Paige!"

And Henry was on top of her, arms tight around her. There was a noise like he was screaming, or maybe she was. Because she knew she'd wanted to, since the train, since they'd showed up at her apartment, maybe since those years ago in the kitchen when they had told her what her family really was.

Paige dug her fingers into her brother's jacket, and sobbed into his shoulder.

* * *

_What are your parents' names?_

Paige wondered if her parents had really thought about what it would be like for Henry, here, alone. What made them think that he would be worse off with them in Russia than here by himself. It was all hard logic, what kind of life he could have there, or the life he had made here, without them. Strangely, these thoughts made her think of her mom, after the truth, when she'd started telling her stories about growing up in Smolensk. Eating rats. Eat rats or starve.

_What are their full names?_

Paige had imagined her mom as a little girl in some dreary black-and-white war reel, torn up dress like orphans wore in fairy tales, little kerchief tucked over her hair, collecting rats out of piles of rubble, breaking their necks and piling them up in her skirt. That image came to her mind again, and then she thought of Claudia – that little orphan girl became a young woman, kerchief still tied over her hair, dress still tattered, and there was the Red Army soldier, still like a statue, a star on his helmet, his rations ready to trade for sex. _Does Dad know he married a whore?_

_What other names do they use?_

Under the table, she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together. Her answers were so simple, and were mostly true. That her parents had come to her apartment and told her the family was in danger, and they had to run now. That she hadn't understood, but followed their instructions because they were her mom and dad, because she trusted them, because she didn't know what else to do. She didn't know why they couldn't call the police. She didn't know why they would pull her out of her home and give her a fake passport and tell her they had to leave the country. Maybe she should've known they were criminals, or spies, or whatever, but they were her parents and she trusted them and what else was she supposed to do?

She felt Mr. Beeman watching her through all of it. Even when he wasn't in the room. When he was, she looked back at his face. Paige imagined he hated her. It wasn't something she could read in his expression, but it made it easier for her to think that. He must hate her. He must have hated her parents, even if he didn't shoot them. But then after all that, he must have come back here, never telling anyone that he'd just let her parents go. Paige didn't know why he he'd stepped aside, but if he could come back, pretend it hadn't happened, why couldn't she?

_Where were your parents born?_

They might have had something else. Something that told them how much she'd really known. Maybe her mom had written something about it, or maybe they had someone else, someone who'd seen 'Julie.' But like she'd known Mr. Beeman wouldn't hurt her when she went back, she also knew somehow that her mom wouldn't have left anything behind, anything to chance, even when she had been meant to go with them. That was it. That was all they had, that she was supposed to go, too.

 _But Henry_. That's what cracks through. Whether or not they think she's a liar, a traitor, a Russian. Her voice nearly broke when she said his name. If they had to leave, if they weren't safe, how could Henry be left behind? How could that be right? The words flooded out, like she wasn't really asking, like they were the secrets she'd been holding back this whole time. How angry she was with her parents, how much about them she was now never going to understand. Even before she was done, the men on the other side of the table had signaled to stop. One left to get her a glass of water.

She knew Mr. Beeman was watching her. Under the table, her hands had curled into fists. She hadn't wanted to be a liar, she remembered that so clearly, from that little girl who felt nothing like her now. Her mom, being the way that she was, had told her that everybody lied. That they weren't really so different from anyone else. Of course that had been a lie, even that scared little girl had known.

Now Paige knew that the best lies to tell were the ones that were true.

* * *

And then she got what she'd wanted. If they suspected her, they couldn't prove anything. She could step back outside, and live as Paige Jennings, the daughter of infamous Soviet spies. She very quickly learned that, and at least she wasn't alone in it. But it meant that the first thing she had to do, what she had to do without entirely realizing, was choose something. The reasons she stayed, the reason she was now the daughter of traitors, and not heroes. Why had she stepped off the train?

She chose Henry. Or at least, that was what she decided. And if that was true, she had to go all in on it.

Whatever money they had, anything they had, came down to the kindness of the U.S. government. They recovered their possessions. Some of their funds. But virtually everything their parents had owned, had earned, could be considered the product of illegal activities. They weren't entitled to anything. And with their parents gone, not dead, not captured, no satisfying ending, much of the storm they had left in their wake could have come down on her and Henry instead. 

But Henry was still seventeen. They couldn't name him to the public, they couldn't leave him with nothing, even if they wanted to. And he stuck next to her, wouldn't leave without her. Mr. Beeman let him sit just outside when she was interrogated; he rested his head on her shoulder as they were driven back to the motel. Paige felt, fleetingly, like they were little kids again, napping in the back seat on their way home. The thought had barely flickered in her mind before a pang shot through her instead. That it wasn't just that they'd grown older, but that she had stepped away without him, that she'd left him no choice except to leave her, too, alongside their parents. And maybe he could've managed it, after long enough, what her parents had seen as the life he could have here without them. 

But choosing to get out of their fucked up family, and having it ripped away all at once – those weren't the same thing at all. 

They were kept in their small motel room for the rest of December. Their possessions were brought to them there, in cardboard boxes that quickly piled up, along the walls and between their short twin beds. So they opened them together, deciding what they really still needed, and what could be thrown away. Old video games, half-used bottles of nail polish, pairs of shoes that were too small by now but had never been tossed before. Among the boxes Paige found a soft, paperback copy of the Bible. She flipped through it to find the paragraphs she'd underlined, the notes she'd made in the margins, some in different colored ink. Something had been so clear to her in these passages at one point, or maybe Pastor Tim's sermons had helped. She read her own handwriting, her own notes. _While we're imperfect, we can only see imperfectly, so the glass is unclear_ , she'd written along the side of 1 Corinthians 13. 

That girl seemed like a stranger, to be so passionate and so certain. _When I was a child, I spoke like a child._

They only left the motel room with approved staff, mostly to take Paige back to the FBI, to talk to her again, as happened less and less frequently as December went on. They weren't forbidden to leave otherwise, exactly, but they had no car, and the motel was far from anything worth leaving for. There was a big empty space in the room where a television set should have been, and no newspapers were delivered, leading Paige to think the news was being deliberately hidden from them. She didn't fight them on it. They probably didn't want to know. 

When they weren't sorting through boxes, finding room to hang or stack clothing, they pulled out a pack of cards they had found in Henry's things, spent their free time playing Go Fish and Crazy Eights, again like they were children. It made it easier to talk about the future when they did it over simple card games. There was no way they could afford for Henry to go back to school in New Hampshire. No one would give or loan them that money. Henry was the one who brought it up, knowing already that whatever they would be allowed, it wouldn't be enough for that. He'd have to go to a public school for his last year and a half, and then… He was better about it than Paige thought he'd be. She knew he was upset, but he didn't let too much of it show to her.

When they were brought food, Paige asked for a newspaper – or at least, the sections that could help her find a job. She didn't tell Henry this, she waited until after he was asleep to look through her options, mark down phone numbers and addresses. But there was no way she was going back to college, either. She had come back, she was with him now. And this was what that meant, swallowing down her feelings and doing what she needed to, to make sure they survived. 

On Christmas Eve – no gifts, no tree, no TV holiday specials or even a radio – they took out some old board games they hadn't thrown out yet, played Monopoly and Scrabble and made hot chocolate from the powder left on the desk in their room. Around six in the evening, there was a loud knock on their door. 

Renee stepped in first. It was the first time they'd seen her since that night, and she put down a foil-wrapped dish and hugged each of them. She didn't hesitate, not even a little. By then they weren't used to that, being accepted so quickly. It was a moment before Paige even saw Mr. Beeman, behind her in the doorway. Henry greeted him quickly, too. Mr. Beeman smiled at him, took his hand. He was still smiling when he turned to Paige, held his hand out to her, but she could see what changed when he looked to her, how that smile was no longer in his eyes.

* * *

There was some talk, at first, of witness protection, but weren't witnesses, and no one really wanted to offer them protection. Neither of them wanted it, either, to change their names, move far away. Henry didn't want that, at least, and Paige didn't want to make him go through it. So when they left the motel, they had enough to start in a small, two bedroom apartment, with Henry enrolled in his new high school. With the help of a social worker assigned for Henry, Paige found a job as a bookkeeper in a florist shop. Renee and Stan showed up again to help them move. Once they were gone, Paige ran out of the apartment, and brought back the first newspaper she could find.

Russian spies living among us, rough sketches that were so clearly their mom and dad. Two American children, but no names, no photographs. Everyone who had known them before would know now – and even if this paper didn't publish their names, their faces, it didn't mean no one would. And everyone – what had happened to everyone who'd worked at the travel agency? Only then had Paige realized she had no idea. And their old friends, hockey, church. They had known there was no going back, but spreading that newspaper over their new small kitchen table, that was when it sank in. The only way was forward.

Paige worked, shopped, came home, cooked and cleaned. She didn't talk much to either of her coworkers. In the first few months, she could see Henry was much the same. He came home, did homework, ate what she made. All of it, whatever it was, even when she was still learning, even when she knew it wasn't very good. Two months in, he started working at a convenience store on weekends. He took laundry to the laundromat without being asked. They played cards again in the evenings, talked about their days, eventually saved enough to buy a TV they could set across from their small sofa. They bought it just in time to watch the Winter Olympics. Henry watched every hockey game he could. Renee and Stan were over when the Soviet team won gold.

Stan. At some point, the switch happened, Paige wasn't even entirely sure when.

But Renee made a point of visiting regularly. She kept bringing them food, Tupperware and casserole dishes piled in their fridge, though Paige wasn't even sure how much Renee really cooked. Sometimes she came with some other small gift, usually cineplex passes. Something for them to do, besides school or work or watching TV. Arguing with Henry over what to see was fun – it was such an easy, stupid thing, something to care about that didn't matter at all. 

But in those first few months, there were no other visitors. Paige spoke to Henry more than anyone else, and she knew the same was true for him. Henry managed to bring home funny stories from his classes, or his job, and Paige listened to everything. This time, she wouldn't let him think for a moment that she didn't care. It helped her, when he did chores without being asked, when he brought home his earnings and refused to keep them for himself. It helped her tell herself this would be okay. That this wasn't like the way she'd lied to him before. 

And it helped that they never talked about their parents. Henry never even asked about that night. Paige tried to imagine what he could be thinking about, what she would want to ask if she were him, but she couldn’t think of anything, nothing she could face, or put in words. And maybe that why he never asked.

It went on that way for six months, until one night when they were washing dishes after dinner, the TV news featured President Reagan, giving a speech at Moscow State University. Paige was busy putting away the dishes, and turned to see Henry absorbed in the report, the president standing in front of an enormous bust of Lenin, that bright red Soviet banner behind him.

"Is that where they are?"

Paige could hear her heart beating fast. Like she might actually see them there, sitting somewhere among the students. She shut the silverware in their drawer, turned away from the TV. "I don't know."

But as time went on, Henry did start talking to others. Did start making friends. He seemed to have a knack for it – it was only when she thought about it, compared herself to him, did Paige realized she had none of that. She'd had friends in school, but hadn't talked to them in years. Even before the truth, she'd barely talked to any of them outside of school. And then the was church, but the person she'd been closest to there was Pastor Tim. She'd only talked to others enough to participate in Bible Study, organize protests and bake sales. She'd had her roommate in college. But Pastor Tim, and Alice – in her whole life, they were the only ones likely to remember anything about her. 

By late summer, she was spending more and more time in the apartment alone. Henry got longer hours, then spent time with his friends. Renee invited her to their home, to the gym, the clubs she went to. Paige always turned her down. She thought she would have even if she hadn't heard what her dad had said that night, that Renee might be another one. She'd tried to ignore that, because especially at first, both she and Henry had needed Renee, needed anyone who seemed to care about them, unconditionally. It was easy at first, but was growing harder now. Not to suspect, not to spend time thinking about every motive Renee might have. Or that anyone might have – the van she could see parked on the street from their apartment window, the man sitting on the park bench she'd pass late at night.

Paige had started thinking, even if he hadn't known, that Henry had found a way to defend himself from his family, from their truth. He'd left, he'd built something else. Sometimes she'd felt like he'd been the smart one for that. But at this, she'd wondered if she had been doing the same. Even before she knew. If she had left as little an impression as she could, stopped herself from making roots even when she'd meant to, because all of it would be torn up one day. Because _they_ were everywhere, they could be anyone.

Or maybe it was what their mom and dad had taught them, not even knowing it themselves. Leave your home and make a life for yourself. But everybody lies, and none of it was going to last.

Pastor Tim was the only person who reached out to her. Through Stan – one evening when he and Renee were over, Stan said he'd gotten a call from him, from Argentina, leaving a phone number and asking about her. She thanked Stan. She never called Pastor Tim.

But it wasn't her only opportunity to start a new life. One of the other employees in her shop was around her age, and asked many times if Paige wanted to come have a drink with her after work, until she learned the answer would always be that 'I'm too busy.' Paige ran into men in the shop, in line at the bank, in the grocery store, who tried to flirt with her. In a few cases, she didn't mind it. She might have responded. It might have been nice, to go to a bar again. To not go home and cook and clean and balance her checkbook. 

But she never answered them. She went home, she did all of those things. When Henry wasn't home she read library books and magazines. And she watched the news, sometimes hoping to see more video from Moscow, or anywhere in Russia. Sometimes she thought about borrowing a book on Russian, about trying to make the recipes that Claudia and Gabriel had made. Pelmeni was so simple, she could do it so easily. But she didn't, for the same reason she did her chores, and worked so hard at a job she didn't care about aside from desperately needing it. 

Because being a grown up meant almost never getting what you wanted, when you wanted it. Paige imagined her mom might look at what she was doing and forgive her for staying behind. But she also didn't care. As much as she'd thought she'd grown up, knew the world, knew what she wanted, Paige felt like she hadn't really known anything until the minute she'd stepped off that train.

* * *

Henry found Paige standing in front of a wall of red wine. She was standing still, her eyes on the bottles, her hands on the cart. He came up behind her, and dropped in the bags of onions and carrots she had asked him to get. The rattle of it in her cart made her blink, her eyes fluttering down and then up to him, her breathing deep.

"What're you doing here?" he asked. Paige glanced down at the cart, half-full with groceries, then back up to the shelves.

"I thought maybe we should bring something."

"Bring something what?" She looked back at him, her eyebrows raised, mouth twisted slightly, coaxing the obvious answer from him. Or not so obvious, since he didn't quite believe it, but, "What? To Mr. Beeman's?"

"I don't know." Paige shrugged, holding her shoulders tight for a moment, her fingers squeezing the handles of the cart. She wanted to get out of here. Speakers set on top of the aisles played a tinny, garbled version of that Paul McCartney Christmas song. There was silver tinsel taped around the price tags, the fluorescent light above them giving it a dull shine. She wasn't sure how long she'd been here, if Henry had coming looking for her. "It's something you're supposed to do, right?"

"I don't know, Paige." She still heard a whine in his voice. She wanted to ask him if he remembered their parents doing it, what sort of thing they used to bring. Did they ever bring food? Paige remembered the brownies her mom made when the Beemans first moved in. It was all she could remember, and it didn't seem like something her mom would do, in retrospect. Bringing food to neighbors. But wine was something they did, something you were supposed to do. She was pretty sure. How can she not remember this for sure? 

"Can you just pick one?" Henry asked. 

"I don't know what to pick." Was this aisle so big before? How did this choice seem so impossible, the names and the prices blurring together? Why did this bother her all of a sudden? She'd been drinking for years. She'd bought wine for herself, for parties. Maybe not for dinner. Definitely not for Stan. For dinner at Stan and Renee's house.

(What were they thinking? It wasn't the first time Renee had invited them back to that house, but it was the first time they'd agreed. Paige felt like she needed a manual. _Etiquette for dinner guests whose parents are Russian spies._ Or maybe just _How to act like an adult_.)

Henry grabbed a bottle by the neck and dropped in the cart. Cheap Merlot. The cart rattled. "Come on, let's go."

He walked off. Paige watched him for a moment, but then followed, without another glance to the shelves.

* * *

Like the year before, Paige didn't look across the street once they arrived. But Henry did, and before they reached the Beemans' door, he took her arm.

"I don't –"

"Paige, just –"

So she did. And beneath everything, it was the same. Paige wasn't entirely sure what she had expected – did she think they'd tear the house down? Rip through the walls so thoroughly looking for KGB bugs, spy notes, decoders that there would be nothing left? No, the house was still the same house. Lights were on in the windows. There were cars in the driveway. And there were large, bright lights, white and red and green, lining the siding, along the windows. There were wreathes on the doors, a tree visible in the front window. In the small yard, glittering under the lights, there were snow angels, one of them very small. That was what Henry had wanted her to see.

Paige turned away without saying anything.

Her angst over the wine didn't amount to much. Renee thanked them, only a little like an adult impressed to see children going through the movements, and put the bottle on the table. The house didn't look very different since they last saw it a year ago, with a handful of Christmas decorations. There were small white lights in the front windows, a short, decorated tree in the living room, two slender wrapped boxes underneath it. The smell from the kitchen, bread and turkey and cranberries, pulled at Paige more than she wanted to admit.

She'd had no choice, when Renee invited them. She knew Henry would want to go, and how could she say no, with how kind Renee had been to them.

Whatever the reason. 

But sitting at that table again gave her goosebumps. She kept her eyes down at first, and she hoped Henry would save them. Which he did, without her having to say anything. He had plenty to talk about by now, his first semester as a high school senior. His plans to apply for college. He could be frustrated with his new school, but he also stood out there. He could get a scholarship. There were possibilities again, and now, with time, it wasn't so hard to believe they might find a way to be accepted again. Or that Henry could, at least. 

"Paige," Renee said from across the table. "If Henry gets a scholarship, maybe you can start taking some classes again."

It was something she'd thought about, but also hadn't really let herself think about. Paige nodded, pretending her mouth was still full of mashed potatoes. She waited a moment, then for the first time, she glanced at Stan, seated at the end of the table, and was surprised to see him smiling at her. Not the way he had before, mouth upturned but eyes intent and wary. He was still quieter than Paige remembered him ever being before, and he still mostly talked to Henry, but then, Henry mostly talked.

Before upside down cake, Henry, who must have felt much braver than Paige had then, asked about Mr. Aderholt. Paige hadn't seen him since the investigation, more than a year ago. Another face that had watched her from the far side of the door, like Stan. Probably combing her answers for inconsistency, for weakness. Unlike Stan, he didn't need her to be believed.

"He and Janine are visiting her folks in Florida," Stan said. And that was it. Paige was thankful Henry didn't ask about Matthew. Much like their parents, that was something she was trying to keep out of her mind. She wondered if Stan was trying to do the same. 

When the meal was over, Paige gravitated to the kitchen, carrying in plates, piling things into the sink. Renee followed her, while Stan and Henry went into the living room. Soon they could hear the television, news from Scotland, then carols, _Do you hear what I hear_ , the squeaking and crowds shouting in a basketball game. Paige started rinsing off plates and piling them up, while Renee brings in the rest. She asked Paige if she has any plans for New Year's Eve. 

"You know," Renee said, after a few minutes of scrubbing cranberry remnants out of a bowl, "I'm not sure why it's us in here while the boys get to watch TV."

She smiled at Paige, and put down the plate, before she walked out of the kitchen. Paige figured she was supposed to follow her, but she didn't really feel like watching TV either. Maybe they would all stay out there. Was that really what she wanted?

It wasn't what happened. She was loading dishes in to the dishwasher when she heard footsteps, and looked up, to see Stan.

"Need help?"

She looked back at him, then turned again to the sink. "Yeah."

He moved up next to her, and grabbed a pot from where Renee had left it. Paige kept piling plates and silverware into the dishwasher, not speaking. Waiting to see if he would.

And he did ask, "How are things?"

"Fine." It was one word, and she didn't meet his eyes. But she nodded, and took a few seconds to think on it – or at least, to answer.

"Sounds like you've both been busy."

Paige finished setting glasses along the dishwasher racks, and leaned down to the closed the door. "Henry's got new friends now."

"You've been doing a lot for him."

Her eyes flickered up to him on that. Was he being friendlier to her? Was there something different now? Now that she looked back at him again, at his eyes focused on her, she wasn't so sure. 

And maybe that was why she said it. She knew she shouldn't, knew how it would sound, even if she truthfully wanted to know. "How are you and Renee?"

Stan's face changed – the set, pleasant smile had faded, though he didn't look angry. She wouldn't have been able to blame him, for being angry. His eyes fell. He set the pot aside, resting his hands on the counter. Unsure what else to, Paige turned the water on, rinsing off what was left of the potatoes from another bowl.

"She's got a lot of perseverance."

He said it, after she'd turned the tap off. Paige listened to the answer, and didn't look up. 

"Is this why you came back?" he asked. "For Henry?"

That made her look back up. "I'm not here for them."

"I didn't say you were," Stan said, his voice even. "I asked about Henry."

There wasn't any point, she thought, in talking about how she'd spent the last year. What she'd given up so that Henry at least could rebuild his life, have a shadow of the future he had imagined for himself before. The nights in, what she'd ignored, what she'd turned down. Because _why_ , why she'd stepped off that train, what she'd thought would happen, what she could do, what her life might have been in Russia instead –

"Paige?" 

Paige dropped a carving fork in her hand. It clattered in the sink, and she saw that even Stan had turned quickly at Henry's voice. He looked between them, and then –

"Renee wants you to come out and watch with us."

She glanced to Stan, but he waved her off without looking back at her.

"Go on."

* * *

Paige stayed at work late every night the week before and after Christmas. Even after Christmas, the shop was packed – though working in the back office, she didn't see the customers, only barely glanced over the so popular holiday flowers, poinsettia and orchids and red and white roses. She ate lunch at her desk, picked up dinner on the way home. Though his school was on holiday, Henry was also busy at that store. Then plans with his friends popped up.

A thought began to curl, like a wisp of smoke in her mind. That maybe Henry had heard her and Stan talking. That maybe he was avoiding her, now. 

But she didn't have much time for that thought to grow. Five days after Christmas, the next to last day of the year. Paige again returned home late, to find that Henry was still out. Leaned against their front door was a small but thick brown envelope. Paige picked it up without a second glance, and set it on the kitchen table. And then she put away groceries, took a shower, swept the floors. It was nearly two hours before she looked back to the envelope. She saw that the envelope hadn't been it, its flap neatly tucked in. 

And inside, there was cash. Twenty dollar bills, all crisp beneath her fingers. She'd counted until she reached fifty, which was when she knew at once, and she threw the envelope back down like it could bite her.

Which maybe it could, if she was right. Because there weren't many people who would leave an envelope bursting with what must have been thousands of dollars in cash at their door. In fact, Paige was sure there was really only one option. And maybe, while the envelope was still under the table, bills just barely peeking out of it, Paige considered it. How she could hide it away, introduce the funds in slowly, avoiding suspicion. It was tempting, something that could make sure they were never behind on rent, wouldn't lose everything if one of them got sick, got hurt.

She stepped back to the table, and lifted the envelope again. Slipped her fingers inside, leafed among the bills, until she found something tucked against them. A small, folded bit of paper. Paige fished it out, and set the envelope aside. The paper between her fingers, she unfolded it, opening a note of three handwritten words:

_We miss you._

Paige put the envelope in her purse. Outside, she threw the note into the first trash bin she passed. She caught a bus. She waited, not looking at her watch. 

The lights were still on when she reached it. Their Christmas decorations were up, she hadn't seen them in such a long time. Large wreaths and string lights. She remembered Pastor Tim telling them how it was important to celebrate, but also important not to get caught up in the materialism, the wastefulness, the distractions that dominated this time for so many Americans. When she thought about it, about those words, it sounded like something her mom might say.

Paige gently pushed the door open, and stepped into the back of Reed Street Church. The main hall was lit up, though only a couple people were inside. She walked down the pews, small bouquets of poinsettias set at each row. Baskets of red and white flowers were set along the organ pipes, the painting of Jesus on the mount, at the edges of the altar. At the front, there was a small manger scene, the statues simple and roughly hewn. Nothing too elaborate.

Paige glanced around. The two people talking at the side of the room had nodded when she came in, and for the moment, they let her wander the hall. She approached the altar, opening her purse as she moved.

The envelope was left there, at the altar. She set it carefully at the edge, next to three red and white carnations tied together with a silver ribbon. 

And she turned, and walked back through the hall to the doors. Her footsteps sounded through the hall. She didn't look back, not even when she heard their voices, those two others, calling out to her. When she stepped back out into the night, she broke into a run.

* * *

The next morning, before she went to work, Henry told her he wouldn't be going out that night. She'd looked up from her cereal, surprised by this.

"You don't have some New Year's party with your friends?"

Henry was watching her. He shook his head. "I'll just – we can stay in. Like last year."

"If you want…"

She hadn't had time to say more, and she hadn't wanted to. It was nice to think she wouldn't be alone that night, even if she didn't want to be keeping Henry inside with her. But imagining the night made her half day of work go quicker. On her way home, she bought beer and butter pecan ice cream. They ordered a pizza, and turned on the TV, first watching the Capitals play the Islanders, before switching over to Dick Clark. Paige didn't say anything when Henry took one of the beers from the fridge. Even if he was technically too young, now.

Paige was curled at one end of the sofa, and he sat on the floor in front of her, leaned against the sofa's edge. They didn't talk much as the night wore on. Henry didn't even look at her much. Maybe Paige should have known then. But she was comfortable, with television, pizza and ice cream and a slight buzz from the beer. She'd let her guard down for a moment, wasn't watching out for that barreling semi, waiting to smash her when she dared to cross the street.

Around 11:55, Paige got up from the couch. She picked up the pizza box, a few pepperoni slices left inside, and closed it. She carried it along with their beer cans and empty bowls into kitchen, where she tossed out the cans, put the bowls in the sink, and took out aluminum foil to wrap the pizza remains. After she'd tucked the leftovers in the fridge, she turned, to see Henry standing on the other side of the table, watching her again. She didn't have anything to drop this time, but she still nearly slammed the fridge door.

"Do you want anything else?" she asked. "They're gonna drop the ball any minute."

He lowered his eyes, and took a couple steps forward, right up to the edge of table. Paige stayed where she was. "Henry, what's up?"

On the TV, the crowds had started counting down. _Twenty-nine, twenty-eight -_ Henry's eyes flashed up. "You didn't know, right?" 

He said it all at once, in a hurry. Those words that tumbled out, like he'd been waiting so long to speak, like he couldn't quite believe he was actually finally saying them. She knew that feelings so well. "Paige, you really didn't know."

_Twenty-three, twenty-two -_

And she couldn't. She couldn’t do it anymore. No more hard logic, just lie and survive. What would her parents tell her. What would Mr. Beeman tell her. Maybe to protect Henry from people like them. Be kind. Let him live, even if it left him completely alone. They didn't really know anything, and she didn't, either. But she had to act anyway. That was what she understood now.

 _Fifteen_ -

"I knew." Her voice was soft, and higher than normal. She looked straight back at him. "I knew for years, Henry."

There was no change, at first, in face. No answer. But the he walked past her. She didn't try to stop him. She listened to his footsteps, and then she heard the front door open, and slam shut again.

From the television, the New York crowds were shouting and singing, balloons bursting like gunshots, their song breaking through the noise, _and never brought to mind_ -

Paige stepped back against the fridge, and slid down to the floor.

* * *

She heard the door open, and turned over, lifting her hands and wiping off her face. There wasn't much room to turn, she'd fallen asleep on the couch. The TV was still on, the news replaying video from around the world, '1989' in bright lights. At first, Paige thought that was where the noise had come from. But then, she heard the door close.

Paige made herself sit up from the sofa. She shook slightly as she rose to her feet, needed to grab the arm rest as she took a step forward, her eyes stayed down on her stocks like she had to watch her steps to get them right. She heard footsteps from the doorway into the kitchen, and ran her hand through her disheveled hair before she looked up.

Henry was sitting at the table, hunched forward, elbows on his knees. He looked up when she approached. Behind her, an anchorwoman announced that it had just turned seven in the morning

They looked at each other. The lights were out, it wasn't yet dawn outside, they were only lit by the glow from the television. The silence between them stretched on, until Paige could feel her hands start to tremble again, until she was breathing faster, until she knew she had to speak. That she could speak again. She closed her eyes, briefly, and she smiled.

"I'm glad you came back."

**Author's Note:**

> I'll admit, I had most of the major events in this in my head since a few hours after the finale. I don't think it's very likely that I would have ever actually written them down if your prompt hadn't given me the excuse/impetus to do it. So thank you for that. If I'd had more time, I might've liked to have added more perspectives, or maybe just include more of Paige and Stan's perpetual 'come at me bro' standoff. And some of my post-finale ideas did extend to after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But this felt like it needed to be about Paige, and Paige and Henry most of all, with that event just on the horizon.
> 
> In any case, I hope that you liked this. Have a very Happy Yuletide :)
> 
> (PS thank you to my beta L for reassuring me that this was in fact coherent despite that so much of the writing was done between 1 and 6 AM.)


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